It is the oldest known portable astronomical calendar
It was found 3600 years after being buried near Leipzig, Germany
It contains tin and gold from Cornwall, U.K. and Austrian sorper
It is the oldest known portable astronomical calendar. It was found 3600 years after being buried near Leipzig, Germany. It contains tin and gold from Cornwall, U.K. and Austrian sorper.
The Nebra sky disk was discovered illegally by metal detectors in 1999 in Ziegelroda Forest about 40 miles west of Leipzig, Germany. They were subsequently imprisoned for their crime.
The disk has been dated to between 1600 BCE and 1560 BCE and shows on the left the full moon, on the right the waxing moon, and between and above, the Pleiades which is a star cluster among the closest to Earth and also known as the Seven Sisters.
The disc also shows the arcs of the rising and setting sun between the summer and winter solstices and is said to be the oldest portable astronomical istrument conveying similar information to complexes like Stonehenge.
The disc is made of tin and copper in the form of bronze and also gold. The tin and some of the gold has been traced to a river valley in Cornwall, England, the sorrer from Bischofshofen in Austria and the remainder of the gold to the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. Considering the disk was made over 3600 years ago it raises the question as to how the tin and gold were transported over 1000 miles from Cornwall to Central Europe and amalgamated with copper and more gold from two further countries. Did the English Channel not exist in those days or was there a celestial alternative means of transport.
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